Dominique Ansel Not Skimping on Butter While Testing for Dominique Ansel Kitchen

Now, don't freak out or anything, but Dominique Ansel is really taking a no-holds-barred approach to butter at his forthcoming West Village bakery, Dominique Ansel Kitchen. Given, one should never expect a French-trained pastry chef to go easy on the butter, and Ansel is, after all, the man who decided to deep fry a croissant, fill it with cream, and call it a Cronut. But let's look at the recipes he's been testing for his new made-to-order pastry shop. First, there's this "1:1 lemon butter tart":

Today begins kitchen tastings for #DominiqueAnselKitchen, our second store in the West Village, coming soon. Here's the 1:1 lemon butter tart, which uses slightly salted European butter to instantly set a sweet and tart lemon curd to order, rather than letting it set with gelatin or firm up in the fridge. The result is an extra "molten" and creamy texture. (Sidenote: for the foodies out there -- the ratio of butter to lemon is almost the same as those famous Robuchon mash potatoes we all crave.) Counting down until the opening in late Spring! #timeisaningredient

A photo posted by dominiqueansel (@dominiqueansel) on Feb 19, 2015 at 9:50am PST

The name suggests that this filling is equal parts butter and lemon. It gets a bit confusing when Ansel brings in Joel Robuchon, whose famous mashed potatoes actually used a ratio of two parts potato to one part butter. But either way, this little tart is heavy on the butter.

The just today, the chef posts this little number on Instagram:

Working on our #viennoisserie game for #DominiqueAnselKitchen tests in preparation for opening in late Spring. One of the things that always bothered me about the classic pain au chocolat is there's not enough chocolate and the quality of the baking chocolate is not very good. Here, a modified croissant shape showcases the honeycomb crumb and allows us to top it with orange compound butter and very generous jagged pieces of Maldon sea salted Valrhona dark chocolate to order. We're pretty excited at the direction this is going. #timeisaningredient #painauchocolat #croissant

A photo posted by dominiqueansel (@dominiqueansel) on Feb 23, 2015 at 8:20am PST

It's his version of a chocolate croissant, topped with shards of chocolate and large chunks of orange-flavored butter. Never mind the fact that croissants are basically half butter anyways.

Not that there's anything wrong with any of this. If anything, just another reason to look forward to the opening of the new bakery, especially for the butter lovers out there.